Interest in video editing, including the creation of videos from still images and separate audio content, is at an all time high. In recent years programs specifically created for editing such content have undergone a steady improvement in functionality. In the past such editing programs were limited to operations on a single type of multimedia material, for example video editing programs were only able to import and edit video material and its associated audio content. Similarly, in the case of audio editing/creation programs, these sorts of programs were only able to process audio material. Content of a type that was different from that which was the focus of the program was not accepted.
The increasing availability of multimedia data and the fact that more and more digital devices can accommodate and play multiple types of media has lead to a corresponding increase in users' expectations with respect to the variety of media types that they expect their software to be able to read, write, and/or perform.
The importance of the Internet with respect to the foregoing has similarly increased. The Internet for most users is a primary means of acquiring, displaying, and sending data having multimedia content—be it visual content like text (information) or images, acoustic content such as an audio file (e.g., a MP3 file), or combined visual and audio content such as video (e.g., a .WMV file). Multimedia in some sense defines the user's perception of the Internet. Of course, the World Wide Web (a system of interlinked, hypertext documents accessed via the Internet) continues to grow without apparent limitation and contains a rich mixture of multimedia content, including photos, video, audio, etc.
Multimedia content that is available for a user to view, hear, download and/or buy might contain any combination of images, video, and/or audio material. However, a user—and especially an inexperienced one—who wishes to utilize multimedia content that is found on the web may not be able to determine whether that content will be in a format that makes it usable within his or her editing program of choice. Determining which content might be usable within a particular program may pose a substantial difficulty for the novice. The user who finds content on the Internet that would be desirable for inclusion in a multimedia project might experience frustration, program crashes, etc., in attempting to import such content, since it is not generally the case that editing programs support all of the formats of multimedia data that might be encountered via the Internet. Thus, if a user intends to utilize content from an Internet source, and especially if content from a website is to be included in the project, the user will likely be required to perform a number of steps to import it, if it can be imported at all. This problem could apply to any sort of multimedia data including video, image, textual, and/or audio data.
In a typical scenario, a user will be browsing the Internet in search of content to include in a multimedia work or, perhaps, the user will just be browsing for recreation. In either case, while browsing, the user might notice content that he or she would like to integrate into a current or future multimedia project. Depending on the type of data, it may be necessary for the user to perform a number of steps in order to import the data into a project. Extraction and integration of image data is surely one of the most commonly encountered tasks of this sort. Although this task might be more readily accomplished than others (e.g., importing video), it still can pose a problem for the novice.
In a typical scenario, a user will need to perform the following sorts of steps in order to incorporate Internet media items into a multi-media project:                An Internet browser program will be activated;        A multimedia editing program will be activated;        The user will need to transfer to the browser and navigate to the web site that contains the content;        The image data that the user wants to integrate into a multimedia project will be identified within the browser and selected;        The selected image data will be extracted from the web page and stored in program memory (e.g., via a system “copy” command) and stored somewhere on the user's hard disk;        The user will transfer to the editing program;        The multimedia project will be selected and opened;        Within the editing program, the file containing the image data will need to be located from within a file selection dialog box; and,        The image data will be imported into and integrated into the current multimedia editing project.        
As is suggested above, in this sort of scenario the user may be required to switch back and forth between at least two programs, remember the previously assigned file name(s) and the directory paths that lead to them, etc. These sorts of tasks are ill addition to learning to master the features of the multimedia editing program. Of course, the foregoing assumes that the file type of the selected content is supported by the editing program, which may not be known for certain until the user actually tries to import the media items. If the file type is not supported, this further complicates and extends the steps (e.g., a conversion step will be necessary) and increases the effort required of a user.
In view of the complexity of the tasks listed above, a casual user may not even attempt to include data from the Internet in a multimedia project, even if such would be desirable. In the case of audio and video data, there can be further complexities. In many cases the integration of audio or video data from a website is a near-impossible task for the casual user because that sort of media is often playing in the background of a website (e.g., audio content) or contained within a graphical user interface designed for replay of content only (i.e., such interfaces may not provide an option to export or store the associated media, for example, video data).
Thus, what is needed is a system and method that allows a casual user to easily and quickly insert content from the Internet into a multimedia project. The system will need to accommodate a variety of different multimedia data types and be able to import most data formats. Finally, the system should consist of a single program (or appear to be a single program) to reduce the need to for the user to switch between a browser and an editing program and otherwise reduce the number of steps in the process discussed previously.
Heretofore, as is well known in the media editing industry, there has been a need for an invention to address and solve the above-described problems. Accordingly it should now be recognized, as was recognized by the present inventors, that there exists, and has existed for some time, a very real need for a system and method that would address and solve the above-described problems.
Before proceeding to a description of the present invention, however, it should be noted and remembered that the description of the invention which follows, together with the accompanying drawings, should not be construed as limiting the invention to the examples (or preferred embodiments) shown and described. This is so because those skilled in the art to which the invention pertains will be able to devise other forms of the invention within the ambit of the appended claims.